The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-06-25
EUGENE AT NAPLES.


 A week or so ago, on the surface of the broad and beautiful bay of Naples, took place the annual contest of the Royal Yacht Club of Italy, and among the thousands of spectators who wit messed the scene was one who is his- torical character. refer to the ex- Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napo- leon III, and the sorrowing mother of the slain Prince Imperial She has, for most Americans, and for that matter for the greater portion of the world, passed into the realm of his- tory. She, however, "still lives" and during the winter and spring of 1SS6-'S7 has resided in Naples in the large villa de la Haute, situated at Posilido, the most charming environ of this singularly picturesque and beautiful city.
 The villa was formerly the property of the Count d'Aquilla, tho brother of the late King "Bombs," and doubly the brother-in- law of the emperor of Brazil, for his imperial Brazilian majesty married the sister of the Count d'Aquilla, while the count married Donna Jannaria, the second sister of Dom Pedro II. 1 remember few years ago that the eldest son of Count d'Aquilla and the sister of Dom Pedro had series of escapades in New York, was hauled up before some of the lower courts, etc, and was maurais sujet, generally speaking. Now the Count dAquilla is great lover of Naples and hated enormously to leave his beloved villa on the bor- ders of the bay. But the fate of the count was bound up in that of his family, and that was decided by Gari- baldIs triumphant entrance into Naples ill September, 1860. The counts villa, by some convenient financial fiction, became nominallv the property of NJ. de la Haute, French banker, who rented it for the past season to the eX-empress.
 This villa has most magnificent outlook. Situated hundred feet above the margin of the bay, the pan orama of Capri, Sorrento, Castella- mare, the whole belt of cities stretch ing around to Naples is unfolded to the spectator, while, towering before the distant Apennines, looms grandly Mount Vesuvius, rolling up his per petual column of vapor against the blue sky of Italy.
 In this villa de la Haute the ex- empress has quietly lived since De- cember last, varying the routine of daily life by skimming over the bay in a steam launch, kindly placed at her disposal by MT. Thomas Patisson, wealthy Englishman of Naples. She has sometimes, also, como into the city-notably on Good Friday-but as general thing, excepting an ex- cursion to Pompeii, she has confined her land visits to pilgrimagcs to vari- ous churches, and has limited her open air exercise to the gardens and groves of the villa. If we should take testimony of some of the society papers of Paris, the ex-empress has spent good deal of her time here in quiet social pleasures with relatives, or with some congenial spirits of the Neapolitan nobility. If we should listen to what the clerical papers at Rome tell us we should believe that the ex-empress's life was one of unmit- igated sadness and given over to med itation and prayer. Probably the truth lies between the two.
 When she first arrived, last December, and before the villa de la Haute was quite ready for her, she visited the royal palace, situated in the very heart of the city. She did not, in going thither, affect any great seclusion. Her visit was to see the residence of the former Bourbon kings and to admire the works of art there gathered. She was clad in deep mourning and carried an ebony cane her constant companion. Some went so far as to state that she seemed a little bowed in December. but the last time that she appeared on the To- ledo-on Good Friday-it was ob- served that her countenance was ffesher and that she was more erect than on her first arrival.
 The fact is the ex-empress is no longer young, and although our mild and genial Neapolitan climate has done wonders for her, yet, even taking the age given in the AImanach de G0Aa and in the biographical dictionaries, she has more than her three score years. According to these records she is now sixty-one years old. There is a very curious thing connected with the age of the ex-empress, and it is very evident that the Almd,adch de Gotho and the biographical diction- aries do not go according to the ssreg- istry of baptism" in the parish church of Spain, where her birth and bap- tism are recorded. When. in ,Jann.